From accommodation to appropriation: teaching, identity, and authorship in a tightly coupled policy context

Abstract

This article explores how one specially prepared, accomplished teacher managed dilemmas that arose as she worked to enact responsive language arts instruction with English Learners in a policy context that privileged high-stakes accountability and standardization. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, the article illustrates how the teacher’s sense of self – who she ‘wanted to be’ – informed her engagement with educational policy. Ultimately, we argue that the teacher’s identity pressed her to engage in acts of appropriation and authorship vis-à-vis the policies and policy-related tools she was asked to implement. In making this argument, we theorize an agentive and dialectical relationship between teachers’ identities and their participation in policy implementation.